Heads Will Roll
by coefficientheidi
Summary: Short glimpses into Hiei's past, beginning with his birth.
1. Alive

The first moments of my existence were in many ways the happiest. They blazed hot and sure with the flame of possibility that new life inevitably possesses, and the hope and affection I witnessed in my mother's eyes as she squeezed me tightly to her breast was enough to assure me, for those few moments, that all was as it should have been.

It was simultaneously the first and last true peace I would feel, sanctity which I was only fleetingly allowed to touch before I was confronted with the truth.

Before I learned that it was bad to burn.

When I discovered that they were plotting my demise, I did not cry. I heard the anxious bickering of those grizzly old hags, their hatred and worry building upon the despair of the woman who held me with such frightened determination, but I could not change any of it. I felt my own heat, but I was trapped and small and I knew little besides the frustration and fear that seeped from their voices, through the air, and into my bones.

My first true lesson of life would not be one of love or hope; it would be of the pain and loss and tragedy that everyone, including me—_especially me_—was born to suffer, regardless of whether it was fair or reasonable.

The uncertainty irritated and confused me, and by the time they finally tore me away from her, even her impassioned, sorrow-ridden cries had become an object of my resentment.

A part of me wanted to be rid of all of it, the bitter, howling wind, the equally bitter expressions on the faces staring down at me—even the tiny, glittering object tucked into my grasp by the woman who told me to kill her first, should I return. But all I knew of anything was that frigid place, and when you fall far enough, you lose too much of yourself to survive with all the same pieces intact.

The gem was all that I had to hold onto, so I clutched it all the way down.


	2. Falling

Perhaps it was unusual for something so young to face its own death.

I fell for so long that I might never have stopped. I had nary a concept of my own mortality, but in the end it did not matter, because I knew that I would live. It was less of a definite possibility than it was an absolute certainty—because of what I was, who I was. Because even then, I would not allow a half-assed toss off a sky-high cliff to snuff out what there was of me.

But being alone like that in such a way, with the air rushing past you and a vast nothingness all around you and no knowledge whatsoever about where in the void you might end up, self-realization is almost guaranteed.

Mine struck the moment I hit the river, the icy current engulfing my fire and stealing the air from my tiny lungs.

I was alight with the sharp exhilaration that comes with being robbed of every ounce of control.

I would never let it happen again.


	3. Beginning

There is something deeply beleaguering about looking into the eyes of a rescuer and feeling only hatred.

Deep down, hatred was all that I felt as I met the confused expression of the worn, dirt-caked man who pulled me from the icy waters of the river.

"Hey, boss! It's a baby!"

But this apparition and the others around him did not show hatred, and for as long as it mattered to me what anyone felt, that fact overwhelmed all else. I was pushed into another pair of hands, and I could feel my burning heart absorbing the curiosity in the ragged gaze that observed me and the gem in my grasp. I felt my real life had begun.


	4. Bandits

I was wrong.

Little did I know that the vestiges of a past life—however brief—are difficult to shake.

The men were bandits. The one with the intense gaze was their leader, and he decided to keep me around for the night.

They gave me food, and they eyed me as if something was not quite right.

After a time, I realized what was not right in their eyes was an infant such as myself clutching that priceless gem. The leader tried to tear it away, but I would not let go. They did not know it was my mother's tear—couldn't have known. I did not even fully grasp how much the gem meant to me, only that I needed to protect it above all else.

We had different ideas about the situation, the bandits and I.

They were not interested in my own well-being; they merely wished to make another easy steal. Upon reaching this conclusion, rather than being afraid of their greed, I was amused—entertained, even.

I knew that they would not have the gem.

And the biggest frustration to them was that if I was right about anything, that was it.


	5. Quarrel

For the most part, they wanted nothing to do with me.

I did not fuss; I did not cry. While their attempts to steal away my mother's tear were ineffective, I found them to be more fulfilling than anything I had currently in my life.

It was the first consistent, real interaction with another being that I would experience. But it was not something they enjoyed. They would become irritated and deposit me in a corner of the cave they shared at night, trapped inside the sweltering prison of the wrappings those cold-hearted wenches had encased me in.

Aside from possessing the jewel, I was nothing of value.

Even then, I knew they wanted to leave me, and after several days, when I had had a significant amount of time to marinate in my own filth, I became a burden to them.

I could hear them speaking close by, discussing my fate as though I were as trivial a thing as the bare bones of a slaughtered animal, and I was too helpless to do anything to change their minds.

"Let's just drop him in the river," one of them said. "He was floating when you found him, wasn't he, Noboru?"

"Everything with air in its lungs floats!" retorted a familiar voice.

"So we should rip out its lungs!" piped another.

The voices bickered for several minutes before they were cut off by an enraged bellow:

"Shut up!" it roared. "All of you, just shut up! We're keeping him for now, and that's final!"

"But why, boss? He ain't doin' anything useful. All he does is lie there, doesn't make any steals—just eats our food!"

"He doesn't eat much."

"Yeah, but—"

_"Shut up!"_

The cave fell silent.

"We're keeping him because I said we're keeping him. If anyone wants to argue, I'll gladly tear your arms off and we'll see how much of a burden you are, then. More than the baby, I'm sure."

Silence.

"He smells like shit," the boss's deep, booming voice continued. "I can't stand it anymore. One of you scoundrels, give him a bath."

"We dunno how to take care'a no baby, boss!"

"Do it!" he commanded again. "Do it, or no one sleeps tonight."


	6. Fire

Despite my knowledge of what was happening, I was unprepared for the true extent of what I would feel once my body was finally free of those cursed wrappings.

Most of my life so far had been spent mummified—nakedness was something I knew not well. When the cool air hit my infant skin, I was no longer trapped, but I was now vulnerable to the world in a different way.

Before I knew what was happening, there was a piercing shriek, and the arms of the bandit who had been made to strip me were ablaze.

He rolled away from me on the cave floor, holding his burning limbs beneath himself in an obvious attempt to stifle the pain, but all that he succeeded in doing was to set more of his body alight.

The two who had been ordered to assist him stared in shock at the scene unfolding, and they continued to stare even as their companion stumbled outside.

The cave reeked of burning flesh.

Those two—when they looked at me, bare on my back on the rocky floor amongst the charred remains of my encasement, terror danced in their eyes.

The heat that I had created was altogether smothering and comforting. It was my safety.

There was a splash from afar, and the screams dissolved into the darkness.


	7. Water

I remember the faces staring down at me—stern, judging.

Terrified.

An acute feeling of déjà vu led my heart and mind back to a time just days before when the ice witches had, too, decided my fate.

The men before me were not particularly admirable, but they were not those women. Still, I did not feel optimistic. I had no reason to; the single experience before this had been unpleasant, so why shouldn't this be, as well? Something inside my chest clenched in preparation; either way, I would not care.

One face was missing from the semi-circle of eyes directed at me.

I could still smell the melted skin.

The bandits did not say a word—not even their leader, whose ragged face I could not tear my gaze away from. He had an apprehensive look in his eye, the kind one gets when they have been presented with an unforeseen complication; when they realize they are in too far, that the prize is not worth the price they're paying.

He did not seem pleased.

Funny, then, that he was the one who should reach for me first, lifting my hot, bare flesh into his large, rough hands.

Even more funny was that I did not burn him, even though the darkness in his eyes and the faint tinge of liquor on his breath told me that I should put up a fight.

He carried me toward the sound of flowing water and lowered me. The feeling of being dropped was still so fresh on my memory that I was certain it was happening again, but he did not let go.

Further down-stream, partially drowned-out by the moving current, were the slowly diminishing shrieks of someone in great agony.

Seemingly unperturbed, the man dipped me into the river.

The current was cold like ice, and the sudden change in temperature felt like a thousand tiny daggers pricking my skin. Supporting me with one hand, he cupped some water in his palm and rubbed away the grime on my body.

When he was finished, he lifted me out again.

He looked hard at me; I did not blink.

"Your fire isn't welcome," he said. "If you want a place with us, you won't use it."

The true value of his words didn't sink in immediately. The only things I cared about were the way his hands gripped me, how I was suspended over the rushing water, and how, at any time, he might drop me.

He must have gleaned some sense of understanding from my silence, for he brought me back to the cave, assuring his worried men that I would no longer present any difficulties.

Although I could not say as much, I knew I would not cross him.


	8. Meaning

The other bandits were not quick to accept me. Hotaru, the one I had burned, was injured beyond anyone's ability to repair him. He became very ill, unable to pull his share of work or even move. Due to the nomadic nature of the group, this was much to his misfortune.

On the day they were to relocate, the boss announced that he would be left behind. "He's useless," was the gruff explanation. "What's the point of having him along?"

I could feel the others looking at me. I, too, was essentially useless. And yet, by some disturbing twist of mercy, their leader was aiding me instead of their trusted comrade.

Still, their anger was not directed at him. It was my fault, after all. I had fallen from the sky and complicated their worlds, and none of us, including me, was very happy about it.

Nestled in a satchel slung over their leader's back, they would not touch me. Already wary of me, the added threat of his wrath was enough to dissuade them for now.

But I knew that the moment I was separated from him, they would try to make me pay for what I had done to them.

The opportunity came soon enough.

The boss would leave. He left often. Sometimes he would take others with him, and sometimes they would come back with shiny ornaments, which he delightedly referred to as "treasures." I did not know what was so special about these objects. I did not understand the relevance of a color or a texture or a shape. Looking back, I suppose it was all very ironic, me holding that gem while not understanding their obsession.

Anything can have meaning.

And quite simply, it was a relief to hear the voices of the men as they babbled on about how much they could sell these things for and what else they might be able to steal. They were certainly not angry with me; they were not angry at all.

The words did not mean anything, but the inflection did.

It was an interaction. Something I could depend on, for now.

Those conversations never lasted long. The men would come and go, though they never all left at once. If the boss took a group with him, he would always leave one behind. He would tell that person—whoever it was—to watch over me. He would say, "If any of the loot is missing when I get back here, you'll be sorry. Oh, and keep an eye on the kid."

I didn't know what to think of this but felt it was an improvement from being tossed off of a cliff. I allowed myself to be thankful that anyone remembered me at all.

That was my first mistake: forgetting that no one cared.

My second mistake was underestimating the power of grief.

The days passed quite uneventfully until the afternoon in which Noboru was assigned to look after me. A large part of me expected him to have gotten over the other bandit's death by now, or at least to have forgiven me for it. It was that hopeful part of myself that had not yet be guillotined by reality. Maybe I wouldn't have forgiven myself either, if I were him. Maybe I didn't grasp the concept of camaraderie. Maybe I didn't understand how close he had been to the one I'd killed. Maybe I was just too young and too broken.

He spent hours ignoring me, unsurprisingly. I had come to realize that generally I was destined to be ignored unless I was setting someone on fire, which I had not done in several weeks.

Incidentally, several weeks had only served to worsen the pain of loss for Noboru.

When the red sun was high in the sky so that the temperature inside the cave classified as sweltering—something I found highly enjoyable—he stalked in, barefoot, and began to dig through one of the many piles of rubbish that had accumulated throughout the previous days. He grumbled, "Fuck—where the fuck—where the fuck is it—" and then, with a victorious grunt, he pulled out a knife.

He walked over and waved it above me. "Time fer a bath!" he announced.

Despite my unquestionably infantile state, I was quite confident that baths and knives had very little in common.

Noboru lifted me from the cave floor. Aside from the cloth wrapped around my groin, I was entirely nude, and I could not tell if the slickness on my skin was my sweat or his as he carried me to the riverside. Unlike our previous camp site, this one contained copious amounts of foliage, and Noboru tripped over errant roots and wet clumps of grass along the way, flailing the knife in the air, his erratic movements threatening to free me from his grasp.

When he finally knelt by the water's edge, he set the knife down. He loosened the cloth until it fell away from my body. He dunked me in the water.

Again.

Again.

My delicate feet hit the clay bottom of the river bed, the rocks scraping the skin of my legs. I tried to hold my breath but inhaled water anyway—could not avoid it. And when he had finally stopped submersing me, when I was finally able to blink the moisture from my eyes, I saw the irate determination in his and I felt something hot bubbling in my chest. Warning, warning.

He picked up the knife, holding the tip of the rusted old blade mere inches from my face. His hand shook, and the object quivered—face, neck, face, neck. As though he were nearly overwhelmed at the difficulty of the decision he was now having to make.

I wanted to hurt him. Instinctively, my body was ready to end this ridiculous river-side escapade altogether, but I could not.

If I did, _he_ wouldn't want me anymore.

The fingers of Noboru's other hand dug into my flesh, but I did nothing, did not even make a sound.

He screamed at me.

Then he threw me on the ground and violently began to sob.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, the voices of the witches echoed: _"Do it, do it, he'll kill us all!"_

I merely stared as Noboru uttered one last cry and inserted the knife into his own chest. He fell to the ground, and I watched until most of the blood had pooled out.

The danger had passed. I wanted to go back to the cave.

I held my mother's tear for dear life.


End file.
